This is my maternal great-grandmother Cipora Tetelbaum. This photo was taken in Vladimirets in the 1920s.
I came from Bessarabia to visit Vladimirets for the first time before I turned six years old. We visited my maternal great-grandmother Cipora, whose maiden name I don’t remember. She was 105 years old. She couldn’t see anything due to her old age. She was sitting on the bed in a dark room with her feet down, and there were chickens running around on the ground floor. When I approached her, she hugged me and stroked my hair repeating, ‘Basia-Bunele, Basia-Bunele.’ I was called Busia at home and had never heard my Jewish name of Basia-Bunia at home before, and it seemed to me that Grandmother Cipora was teasing me. I felt hurt and burst into tears. Grandmother Cipora must have lived with one of her children and they must have been poor, judging by their house and earth-floors.
